Roman Catholics

"The continuous proposal of alternatives and relentless criticism are the two pillars on which all scientific research is based."

"Having more theories available that allow us to see different aspects of an event and attempt to discard existing theories is not a weakness, but a strength."

"Despite the long history of the “controversy over method”, which has seen a series of attempts – from Dilthey to the Frankfurt School – to deny (especially by some historians, sociologists and philosophers) the unity of the “scientific method”, today it seems increasingly clear that scientific theories are constructed, tested, confirmed or rejected through a “single methodology”."

"Popper developed what is today the most rigorous, articulate and devastating critique of Marxism."

"Closely connected with the idea of “rationality”, understood as a critical attitude, Popper developed the theory of the “open society”. Critical of “historicism”, i.e. the claim that one can grasp the “laws” that guide the whole of human history, Popper opposed “holism” (i.e. the idea that society can be known in its entirety) and “utopianism” (the idea that society can be “changed” in its entirety according to a deliberate plan)."

"Popper argues that the worst aspects of Marxism stem from Hegelianism, namely historicism and totalitarianism. Not only Hegel, but also Marx is a “false prophet”."

"Living is learning. Science evolves in a Darwinian way: through trial and error."

"At the beginning of the academic year 1946-1947, Karl R. Popper received an invitation from the Secretary of the Moral Science Club in Cambridge to give a lecture. This was the occasion for the clash between Popper and Wittgenstein on the tasks of philosophy. But here is what happened the day after Popper gave his lecture. The next day, Popper recounts in his Autobiography, on the train to London, there were two students sitting opposite each other in my compartment, a boy reading a book and a girl reading a left-wing newspaper. Suddenly, the girl asked, “Who is this Karl Popper?” And the boy replied, “Never heard of him”. Such is fame. (I later learned that the newspaper contained an attack on “The Open Society”)."

"“'Information does not produce imperatives”'. And, therefore, it is not logically possible to move from being to ought to be. This, in short, is the law of Hume, the great division between indicative assertions and prescriptive assertions, between facts and values. This law is a death sentence for natural law and tells us that values are not based on science: they are based on our “choices of conscience”. (p. 62)"

"An open society is [...] open to as many people as possible with different and perhaps conflicting ideas, ideals and beliefs — it is open to as many as possible, but not to everyone. It is closed, on pain of self-destruction, only to the intolerant, that is, to those who, believing themselves to be in possession of absolute truths and exclusive values, attempt to impose these truths and values at any cost, even with tears of blood. (p. 11)"

"The acceptability of a scientific theory is relative to the knowledge and technical resources available at a given time. (p. 7)"

"In science, nothing is certain: neither general assertions nor observational assertions. (p. 7)"

"[...] the Christian idea of man “made in the image and likeness of God” has created, on a political level, a tension that runs through the entire history of the West. It is, in fact, an ideal which, despite compromising and even murky vicissitudes, between ‘theocratic’ temptations and ‘satanocratic’ rejections of political power, has exerted, throughout history, a sometimes overwhelming pressure on its antithetical worldly element. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”: with this, the principle that Káysar is not Kýrios entered history – political power was desacralised, the worldly order relativised, and Caesar's demands subjected to a judgement of legitimacy by an inviolable conscience. On this basis, Origen could justify, against Celsus, the refusal of Christians to associate themselves with the cult of the emperor or to refuse to kill in obedience to his orders."

"You cannot be a philosopher. You cannot be one because you are a believer. A Catholic cannot be a philosopher'. So said Ugo Spirito to me one day. And this was the claim of most of the most influential philosophical movements of the century just ended. It was the presumption of those idealists for whom philosophy had among its tasks that of bringing to rational awareness contents embedded in “religious myths”."

"Europe is its history. “And this history is not the history of an idea that allows only one tradition, but the history of a tradition that allows the most diverse and daring ideas”."

"Supreme values are the subject of conscious choices: they are neither “proven” theorems nor “self-evident” and “self-founding” axioms."

"Christianity was the most important political event in the West: by religious decree, the state cannot be everything. Theocracy, therefore, is not part of Europe's destiny."

"Susanna Agnelli, known as ‘Suni’, a nickname that always sounded terribly snobbish simply because she bore it, has always remained a mysterious woman: paradoxically, aloof. A tall, imposing figure with an ironic smile and an equally ironic gaze, little is known about her private life, her children or her friends. She was a sort of manifesto for silent female emancipation. But never, at heart, ostentatious; and perhaps she paid dearly for it."

"Massimo Franco, Andreotti. , Oscar Mondadori, Milano, 2010. ISBN 978-88-04-59563-2"

"[...] as Minister of Finance, [Andreotti] had intervened to have a poster changed in which Anna Magnani was dressed as a nun. The problem was called Pascalina Lehnert. Sister Pascalina, who was a kind of ‘housekeeper’ to the Pope, belonged to the order of Franciscan Missionary Sisters, who considered their habit to be ‘desecrated’ by the poster. The poster was changed and some scenes from the film [Suor Letizia] were reshot. Sister Pascalina had won, and Andreotti had earned himself extra credit with Pius XII. (p. 52)"

"Andreotti dreamed of a ‘Christian’ cinema that would compensate for the cultural primacy of the communists. Following his inclination towards concrete things, he listed the box office takings of Roman cinemas for the screening of the film [Gli uomini non guardano il cielo] on the life of Pius X, and compared them with the much higher takings of Siamo tutti assassini. He concluded that films about popes were not ‘box office hits’ even for Roman Catholics, who were supposed to be pious. (p. 51)"

"This book is about a survivor: of two world wars, seven popes, the monarchy, fascism, the First Republic and perhaps even the Second, if it is true that it is in crisis. And of six trials for mafia association and murder. It is the biography of a protagonist and witness who is quite unique in the Italian landscape: a friend of popes, heads of state, nuns, beggars, bankrupts, saints, dictators, actresses, emirs, painters, footballers, thieves and mafia colluders. A former powerful figure who is difficult to define as ‘former’, and about whom the younger generations know little and the older ones think they know (almost) everything, even if this is not true."

"(About Susanna Agnelli) She has always been the least Turinese member of the Agnelli family and, one might add, the most public."

"But Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery."

"They had only three sacraments, baptism, eucharist, and the orders; and would not admit transubstantiation in the manner the Roman Catholics do. They knew nothing of purgatory; and the saints they said were not admitted to the presence of GOD, but were kept in a third place till the day of judgment. Their priests were permitted to marry, at least once in their life. Their rite was the Chaldaean or Syrian.… The uncontrolled power of Papal Rome had not then reached the Syrian churches in Travencore: they preserved their independence, and remained for ages unmolested, until the maritime discovery of India by de Gama: after which, priests and inquisitors from Goa disturbed their peace, burnt their unadulterated versions of the sacred scriptures, and compelled many of their churches to acknowledge the pope’s supremacy."

"'Twas God the Word that spake it, He took the Bread and brake it: And what that Word did make it, That I believe and take it."

"Mr. Gibbon has much to learn concerning the gospel before he can be properly qualified to write against it. Hitherto he seems to have been acquainted with nothing but the corrupt establishments of what is very improperly called Christianity; whereas it is incumbent upon him to read and study the New Testament for himself. There he will find nothing like Platonism, but doctrines in every respect the reverse of that system of philosophy, which weak and undistinguishing christians afterwards incorporated with it. Had Mr. Gibbon lived in France, Spain, or Italy, he might with the same reason have ranked the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the worship of saints and angels among the essentials of Christianity, as the doctrines of the trinity and of the atonement."

"The victory of orthodox Christian doctrine over classical thought was to some extent a , for the theology that triumphed over Greek philosophy has continued to be shaped ever since by the language and the thought of classical metaphysics. For example, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 decreed that "in the sacrament of the altar... the bread is transubstantiated into the body [of Christ]." ...Most of the theological expositions of the term "" have interpreted "substance" [according] to the meaning given this term ...in the fifth book of Aristotle's Metaphysics; transubstantiation, then, would appear to be tied to the acceptance of Aristotelian metaphysics or even of Aristotelian physics. ...Transubstantiation is an individual instance of what has been called the problem of "the hellenization of Christianity.""

"Nothing announced so sudden a destruction. The people in general seemed attached to the ceremonies of catholicism; but there are bodies struck with lightning, who seem still to preserve their life and organization, but touch them, and they crumble into dust. The people had the appearance of believing in the mass, in transubstantiation, and in the most received dogmas of the catholic faith; but the people did not believe in them at all. All the sarcasms of Voltaire against the priests, all the pleasantries of the author of the Pucelle, had reached them... There was only a single step to take to lay the revolutionary axe to the root of altars loaded with gold and silver: had they been naked, they would have escaped the destroying hand. It is not their overthrow which ought to astonish, but it is having seen them fall in one day, with all the circumstances of the most profound contempt or hatred. The progress of irreligion was extremely rapid amongst the vulgar, who armed themselves at once with hammers and levers to break the sacred images before which six months back they bent the knee. They were easily persuaded that it was a useful thing to transform the temples into magazines, golden cups and crosses into money, the iron grates into bullets, and the copper cherubim into cannon. The mob thought, that after the decree of national sovereignty, the right of doing every thing, of commanding every thing, and of not obeying, was fully devolved to them alone."

"Early man... sought to identify himself with the animals he especially admired, and when he ate their flesh it was not alone to nourish his body but also to enrich his psyche with their virtues. ...That aspiration... was to lead... to the physical horrors of cannibalism on the one hand and to the intellectual horrors of transubstantiation on the other. At a much earlier period it was to set up the curious institution of the totem... The falcon-god Horus, of the Egyptians, probably began as such a totem, and so did the cow Hathor and the serpent Neith."

"This only will I speak, and that in a word: they which brought in transubstantiations, masses, calling upon saints, sole life, purgatory, images, vows, trifles, follies, babbles, into the church of God, have delivered new things, and which the scriptures never heard of. Whatsoever they cry or crack, they bring not a jot out of the word of God... These they honour instead of the scriptures, and force them to the people instead of the word of God: upon these men suppose their salvation and the sum of religion to be grounded."

"To the gross senses the chair seems solid and substantial. But the gross senses and be refined by means of instruments. Closer observations are made, as the result of which we are forced to conclude that the chair is “really” a swarm of electric charges whizzing about in empty space. ... While the substantial chair is an abstraction easily made from the memories of innumerable sensations of sight and touch, the electric charge chair is a difficult and far-fetched abstraction from certain visual sensations so excessively rare (they can only come to us in the course of elaborate experiments) that not one man in a million has ever been in the position to make it for himself. The overwhelming majority of us accept the electric-charge chair on authority, as good Catholics accept transubstantiation."

"In the interpretation of figurative passages, let the following canon be observed. If the passage be preceptive, either forbidding some flagitious deed and some heinous crime, or commanding something useful and beneficent: then such passage is not figurative. But, if the passage seems, either to command some flagitious deed and some heinous crime, or to forbid something useful and beneficent: then such passage is figurative. Thus, for example, Christ says: Unless ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood; ye shall have no life in you. Now, in these words, he seems to command a heinous crime or a flagitious deed. Therefore the passage is a figure, enjoining us to communicate in the passion of our Lord, and admonishing us to lay it up sweetly and usefully in our memory because, for us, his flesh was crucified and wounded. On the other hand, Scripture says: If thy enemy shall hunger, give him food; if he shall thirst, give him drink. Here, without all doubt, an act of beneficence is enjoined."

"The Lord ... said: Unless a man shall eat my flesh, he shall not have in himself eternal life. Certain of his disciples, the seventy to wit, were scandalised, and said: This is a hard saying; who can understand it? And they departed from him, and walked with him no more. His saying ... seemed to them a hard one. They received it foolishly: they thought of it carnally. For they fancied, that the Lord was going to cut from his own body certain morsels and to give those morsels to them. Hence they said: This is a hard saying. But they themselves were hard: not the saying. For, if, instead of being hard, they had been mild, they would have ... learned from him what those learned, who remained while they departed. For, when the twelve disciples had remained with him after the others had departed, ... he instructed them, and said unto them: It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. As if he had said: Understand spiritually what I have spoken. You are Not about to eat this identical body, which you see; and you are Not about to drink this identical blood, which they who crucify me will pour out. I have commended unto you a certain sacrament. This, if spiritually understood, will quicken you. Though it must be celebrated visibly, it must be understood invisibly."

"It seems to me that art is a great miracle-it is the showing forth of the Holy Spirit transubstantiation. It is to find and proclaim the poetry of life, without which there is no life."

"The spectator experiences the phenomenon of transmutation; through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubstantiation has taken place.. .All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."

"The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation...claims...the "Whole substance" of the wine is converted into the blood of Christ,; the appearance of wine that remains is "merely accidental", "inhering in no substance". Transubstantiation is colloquially taught as meaning that the wine "literally" turns into the blood of Christ. Whether in its obfuscatory Aristotelian or its franker colloquial form, the claim of transubstantiation can be made only if we do serious violence to the normal meanings of words like 'substance' and 'literally'."

"To understand transubstantiation, let's turn to a related word that is more familiar to us: transformation. Transformation means changing from one form to another, while transubstantiation means changing from one substance to another. Let's take an example. When we see a woman leaving the hairdresser's with a whole new hairstyle, we sometimes spontaneously exclaim: ‘What a transformation!’. No one would dream of exclaiming, ‘What a transubstantiation!’. And rightly so. Her form and external appearance have changed, but not her inner being and personality. If she was intelligent before, she is intelligent now; if she was not intelligent before, I am sorry to say that she is not intelligent now either. Appearances have changed, but not substance. In the Eucharist, exactly the opposite happens: substance changes, but appearances do not. The bread is transubstantiated, but not transformed; in fact, its appearance (form, taste, colour, weight) remains the same, while its profound reality has changed, it has become the body of Christ. The promise of Jesus heard at the beginning [of the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time] has been fulfilled: "The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.""

"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

"Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors."

"[About the Plan of "Democratic" Rebirth, as in the picture] My Plan of rebirth? I see that twenty years later this Bicamerale [the Massimo D'Alema Bicamerale] is copying it piece by piece, with the Boato draft. Better late than never. They should at least give me the copyright..."

"The list of P2 affiliates includes, they say, 953 names, corresponding to the highest ranks of politics, the judiciary, the armed forces, bureaucracy, industry and finance. All ‘brothers’. It's proof that, in this country, woe betide only children."

"The Middle Ages as a whole and throughout their duration – with all the ambiguity of their chronological boundaries and of the very expression "Middle Ages" – prove to be an incomparable season of the culture of reason."

"The Lord sent his apostles to proclaim and bear witness to his Gospel throughout the whole world, so that all men – absolutely all men – might become believers in Him. It follows that his disciple will not blush to proclaim that the only "true religion" – to use Augustine's words – is that announced by Christ and in actuality in Him; that there is no Christian God and, equivalent or almost equivalent to him, the God of other religions, even if monotheistic, but that the only true God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity."

"The P2 also wanted Moro's death because he opened the door to the PCI. And Cossiga was powerless."

"[On the judicial investigations that led to his removal] I was more upset about the end of another investigation, the one into IRI's slush funds. In the P2 case it was the first time, and I thought it was an accident that could happen. But the next time I was on the verge of resigning."

"The investigations into the Freemasons and the relationship between the lodges and the mafia must lead to the political responsibility of the Honourable Mrs Anselmi and her commission on P2. What emerged was already known at the time, but Mrs Anselmi, on behalf of the party system, did not want to clarify the situation regarding the Freemasons."

"No one can deny that P2 is a criminal organisation."

"Being a member of the P2 meant having participated in an organisation, a secret sect, plotting against the State, and this was ratified by Parliament. And I share this opinion that was formed after the investigation by the Anselmi Commission."

"Since fifteen years a group of people has been using public functions to solve their own problems of justice; Go and reread the proposals of P2, go and reread all those proposals, they are exactly those of a justice system subservient to power, they are exactly those of an anti-democratic state where a caste rules over a people who are no longer citizens but subjects."